Stocks dip as Wall St eases, dovish BoE hits sterling

NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - A gauge of world stock declined as Wall Street dipped on Thursday, although European shares rallied, while sterling hit a nine-month low against the euro after the Bank of England's policymakers kept interest rates unchanged.

Wall Street declined on a pullback in technology shares, the best performing sector so far in 2017, the index was last off 0.37 percent. However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted slight gains to hold above the 22,000 mark breached for the first time on Wednesday.

"The tech sector is going through a consolidation phase where people are taking some money away from big names and putting it towards underperformers," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.

Britain's FTSE index, up 0.85 percent, led the charge in overseas markets and sterling skidded to its lowest since Nov. 2 at 90.48 pence per euro after the British central bank kept rates at a record low and cut its forecasts for growth and wages due to Brexit uncertainty.

The weaker growth outlook bolstered expectations the BoE will be less likely to raise interest rates in the near future.

The FTSE notched its biggest daily percentage gain since July 12.

Europe's STOXX 600 recovered from early falls to nudge into positive territory, gaining 0.1 percent. Markets in Italy, up 1.02 percent, and France, up 0.5 percent, advanced although German stocks dipped by 0.2 percent.

Among other upbeat news, retail sales in the euro zone increased by 0.5 percent in June on the month, well above market expectations of a 0.1 percent rise.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.24 points, or 0.01 percent, to 22,019.48, the S&amp;P 500 lost 5.8 points, or 0.23 percent, to 2,471.77 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 18.56 points, or 0.29 percent, to 6,344.08.

U.S. Treasury yields fell to more than one-week lows in the wake of the BoE announcement. Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 6/32 in price to yield 2.2407 percent, from 2.262 percent late on Wednesday.

U.S. labor market data showed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell last week, a positive factor that may keep the Federal Reserve on course to announce plans next month to start reducing its massive bond portfolio.

The claims data, however, has no bearing on July's employment report, which is scheduled to be released on Friday, as it falls outside the survey period.

The U.S. dollar held near 15-month lows, after briefly losing ground against a basket of major currencies after weaker-than-expected U.S. services sector data worried investors ahead of the jobs data and stoked doubts that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates again in 2017.

The dollar index rose 0.04 percent, with the euro up 0.07 percent to $1.1862. Sterling was last trading at $1.3124, down 0.73 percent against the dollar on the day.